Elsevier

Social Science & Medicine

Volume 96, November 2013, Pages 174-182
Social Science & Medicine

Neighborhood cohesion and daily well-being: Results from a diary study

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.07.027Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Neighborhood cohesion is positively associated with daily positive affect.

  • Neighborhood cohesion is inversely associated with negative affect and symptoms.

  • Neighborhood cohesion is negatively associated with daily stressors.

  • Neighborhood cohesion buffers the effects of stressors on negative affect.

Abstract

Neighborly cohesiveness has documented benefits for health. Furthermore, high perceived neighborhood cohesion offsets the adverse health effects of neighborhood socioeconomic adversity. One potential way neighborhood cohesion influences health is through daily stress processes. The current study uses participants (n = 2022, age 30–84 years) from The Midlife in the United States II and the National Study of Daily Experiences II, collected between 2004 and 2006, to examine this hypothesis using a within-person, daily diary design. We predicted that people who perceive high neighborhood cohesion are exposed to fewer daily stressors, such as interpersonal arguments, lower daily physical symptoms and negative affect, and higher daily positive affect. We also hypothesized that perceptions of neighborhood cohesion buffer decline in affective and physical well-being on days when daily stressors do occur. Results indicate that higher perceived neighborhood cohesion predicts fewer self-reported daily stressors, higher positive affect, lower negative affect, and fewer physical health symptoms. High perceived neighborhood cohesion also buffers the effects of daily stressors on negative affect, even after adjusting for other sources of social support. Results from the present study suggest interventions focusing on neighborhood cohesion may result in improved well-being and may minimize the adverse effect of daily stressors.

Section snippets

Neighborhood cohesion and health

Several large studies have found associations between neighborhood cohesion and both physical and mental health. Among US adults, individuals' perceptions of neighborhood cohesion and safety are positively associated with self-rated physical and mental health, even after adjusting for sociodemographics and perceived social support (Bures, 2003). In England, older adults living in a deprived neighborhood were individually asked to rate cohesion in their neighborhoods. Among these respondents,

Daily stressors and health

Although researchers have documented the benefits of neighborhood cohesion, the mechanism underlying this association is unclear. Neighborhood cohesion may lead to better health outcomes by both reducing exposure to daily stressors and by buffering the effects of stressors on health outcomes. Daily stressors people encounter in a routine week such as a work deadline are relatively minor, yet these stressors influence our affective well-being (Almeida, 2005). Positive affect is lower, and

Social support and stress

One concern with studies examining neighborhood cohesion and health is that findings reflect benefits of social support in general, not social features specific to the neighborhood. A large literature attests to the protective effects of perceived social support from one's family and friends (for a review see Cohen & McKay, 1984). Psychologists posit that social networks function in many ways, including provision of emotional or instrumental support, companionship, and behavioral control.

Neighborhood socioeconomic status and health

Neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES), defined as average income, unemployment, or some composite measure, has been implicated in several indices of health. Although studies yield mixed results, lower neighborhood SES is usually related to poorer health (Diez Roux & Mair, 2010) and lower neighborhood cohesion (Murayama et al., 2012). Furthermore, the health benefits of neighborhood cohesion are often enhanced in lower SES neighborhoods (van der Linden et al., 2003). The current study includes

The current study

The current study uses diary data to explore associations between perceived neighborhood cohesion and daily stress processes. The decision to examine these stressors was based on literature suggesting stressors of an interpersonal nature are reported significantly more often than other types of stressors (Almeida, 2005). Benefits of diary data include analyses of within-person fluctuations in daily well-being and relations between stressor exposure and reactivity in a natural setting.

Sample and procedures

The Midlife in the United States II (MIDUS II) study included a telephone and questionnaire survey of a large sample of U.S. adults. A subset of MIDUS II participants (N = 2621) were successfully contacted by phone and asked to complete the National Study of Daily Experiences II (NSDE II), which consisted of short daily telephone interviews across eight days. Of those invited, 2022 (or 77.15%) agreed to participate. The majority (92%) of the sample was white. Five percent of the sample had less

Results

Few people reported very low cohesion within their neighborhoods, with only 8.73% of participants reporting they only agree ‘a little’ or ‘not at all’ to either of the two questions. Also, 36.7% of the participants reported the highest rating (a lot) for both items. To adjust for this skewness, neighborhood cohesion was divided into roughly equal tertiles representing those who endorsed the highest rating for both items (1), those who endorsed the two highest (1 and 2) ratings for each

Discussion

A growing body of research suggests that features of a neighborhood have health implications, with a large proportion of that literature pointing to the harmful effects of neighborhood deprivation (Diez Roux & Mair, 2010). Results from this study, however, suggest that resources within neighborhoods, namely cohesion, can have protective roles. Neighborhood cohesion predicted fewer daily stressors, lower negative affect, higher positive affect, and fewer physical symptoms over an eight-day

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    This research was supported by National Institute on Aging Grants awarded to David M. Almeida (P01 AG020166 and R01AG019239), and is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under Grant No. DGE-0808392 awarded to Jennifer W. Robinette.

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